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Welcome to Wednesday everyone, we have some big news for ya this week. The Steam app is now out of beta, the Midweek Madness game is a good one, Serious Sam 2 is now out, The Darkness II demo is out, I have had my cherry popped with DOTA 2 and a couple of news items at the end. It’s February, it’s cold, let get the heat going. Gaming News starts...NOW!

Since we posted about it last week it was in a closed beta for iOS/Android. Starting yesterday, it has been opened up to everyone. It plays well on Android 4.0, as for iOS, I will have to talk to our resident Apple guru Chad. From what I have used, it works great. The chat feature is something that I think a bunch of us were waiting on. No, I haven’t bought any games thru the app but I plan on it if I am away from my PC and I see something that I want. If your a Steam user, have an iOS/Android phone, go ahead and download it. The best part about it, its free!

With all of the flak that Duke Nukem Forever took, pick this game up if you already haven’t. For $5 its worth your time to run through the game. Sure, it’s not the best game ever created but it is enjoyable and for five bucks, hard to beat. As always, the Midweek Madness sales end on Thursday’s at 7pm EST.

As a regular Gaming News reader would know, Serious Sam is one of my favorite franchises. The games have always been about just having fun. The story, if any, is way at the back of the room for these games. This series is about throwing it back to the good old days of mowing down large groups of baddies. If you like guns and lots of them, check out the newest addition to the series. It can be picked up now for $9.99 on Steam.

I am not going to lie here. I played the first The Darkness game and didn’t see what the big deal was with it. Sure, it did some interesting stuff but that’s when I was playing just on PS3. Thank goodness those days are over and I am PC and Android only now. The first item that I noticed after firing up the demo was the FOV. It is very narrow. Now i’m not one to puke during games or get sick or have any problems at all. But this game really needs the FOV help pill. Looking over on the forums for the game there are multiple people that stated this. With the standard dev reply of “we’ll look into it”. It kinda doesn’t put it’s best foot forward. Atleast let me change it in the menu, something, anything at this point. Regardless, The Darkness II drops on February 7th on Steam for $49.99.

After sending out my survey for DOTA 2 as soon as it was released, I awaited my chance to get in. As months passed I lost hope. I really want to see what all of the fuss is about. Prayers answered, lol. With this latest installment into the DOTA series Valve is again, gonna have some players on it’s hand. With League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth out there and Free-to-Play its going to take some hard thinking on Valve’s part to pull people away from those other games. Lets get this out of the way, I am not a LoL fan and here’s why; players that play more, get more. You start out with an advantage the higher up you are. It would be the same thing as starting out with the “Nuke” in MW3. The game rewards players that invest hundreds of hours into it. Unlike HoN and DOTA where you all start out at the same level in each game. These games reward the best players, not the ones that invest the most time into them. Whatever you fancy may be you can’t deny the fact that all three games have a large following, tourneys, and prizes. The best part about all three is they are Free-to-Play. I am pretty sure that is why LoL has taken off like a mad person online.

With DOTA 2 still being in beta I jumped on with the other LanOC Staff and readied myself for slaughter. One thing that I will say right off the bat, is, RUN, RUN like you stole something in these games. Don’t try to be the big man on campus, you will get trounced. Knowing this I tried to click as fast as my sausage link fingers could but, being a “Noob” I just wasn’t fast enough and was killed multiple times. I haven’t looked yet, but I hope there is somewhere in the game that shows me what items to buy and when. Should I buy something out of the gate? Or wait and save the gold for something down the road? Whatever it may be, the game is stupid fun when you are playing with friends, and that goes for most games. When your playing with people that you know they can offer advice when you need it and cheer for you when you do something good. Trust me, there wasn’t much cheering going on when I was playing. That is what gaming is all about though. Spending time with your friends doing something that all of you enjoy, together. DOTA 2, I will see you soon. Just take it a bit easier this time.

If you haven’t noticed this thread please take a look at it for the most up-to-date sales that are going on that day on Steam. I try and post them up as early as I can but I do slip up some days. With over twenty nine thousand views, it looks like people are interested in seeing whats on sale.

Another thread that’s going on is the “Most recent purchases” thread. This is a great one to post up a pic of what you picked up recently. Don’t be shy either, some members have posted pic’s of milk that they bought at the grocery store. If you bought it, we want to see it.

Have you seen Wes’s reviews of the AMD 7970 and 7950? If not, take a look. The performance is there but they are a bit pricey. Weird to, AMD has been the cheaper of the two card makers for awhile now. Good to see AMD stepping their game up. With Kepler coming soon it shall be an interesting quarter or two for big red and big green.

That is all for this week LanOC. It’s going to get even busier than usual around here. If you would like to join us for some DOTA 2 action we have been playing on Tuesdays and Thursdays around 6pm. Let us know and we will reserve you a spot.

Want some IPV6 goodness? If you are on T-Mobile and have a select device follow this link over to Android Police to see how to set it up. I have had it working for a couple of days with no problems.